New Nail Salons Paint Consumers Green and Healthy

As a woman, beauty has its risks. For an hour or so every few weeks, lots of women just like me escape to a nearby salon for a pedicure and/or manicure. Depending on the salon, the level of relaxation comes with a price. No matter how soft the chairs are, how incredible the massage feels, how clean the spa looks, or how great your nails turn out, one thing for sure is you can never enjoy the choking smell of acetone and glue used in polish remover and artificial nail procedures.

While acetone is widely known as a chemical solvent to remove nail polish, it is also strong enough that it is commonly used as the active chemical in paint thinner. Adhesives used in applying artificial nails have a very strong smell and can cause dizziness and light-headedness if there is not enough fresh air moving through the salon. News over the last few years has linked the potent adhesive methyl methacrylate (MMA) to serious nail infections with sometimes irreversible side effects and caused the U.S. to approve only ethyl methacrylate (EMA) adhesives for applying acrylic nails. Through prolonged skin contact and fumes, ingredients used to make acrylic nails pose a variety of dangers including birth defects, cancer and mental disorientation for customers and employees. Also due to recent health concerns about the toxins in nail polish as well as the "green movement," more and more salons are cropping up that are health and environmentally conscious than ever before.

Just last year, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded $100,000 to two non-profit groups based in the Seattle area teaming up with the Community Coalition for Environmental Justice to set out to paint nail salons a better shade of green. The "Toxic Beauty" project was proposed to help researchers find solutions like safer products, alternative methods, exposure-reducing containers for chemicals, and better ventilation systems in order to help solve the health risks involved in being an employee or customer of nail salons with high chemical levels.

Using recycled materials in décor and paper supplies, new green nail salons are seeing more results and less chemically-induced nose wrinkles than ever before. Introducing amenities such as energy-efficient lighting techniques, renewable architectural resources, all organic oils, lotions and waxes, some of these salons are even going as far as offering safe, non-toxic nail polishes, soy-based nail polish removers without acetone, and offering only services for natural nails.

Because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not need to approve cosmetic products before being commercially marketed, nor do they ask companies to test their products for safety, countless items that could have potentially harmful levels of chemicals could be lurking in your medicine cabinet, at your beauty warehouse, or on the shelf at your local nail salon. If you can't find a green nail salon near you and are worried about the effects of the chemicals in your salon, look up the toxicity of your favorite products and find safer solutions for an at-home do-it-yourself manicure or pedicure, such as the Aquarella line of water-based polishes and polish removers.

A few Sundays ago while walking around and shopping in San Francisco, a friend led me and my tired feet to a busy street and ushered me into a glass door next to a tiny ice cream shop. I closed the door behind me and realized it was a nail salon with bamboo accents, a modern "less is more" approach to design, and three working technicians. I noticed a man getting his fingers filed, a woman across the way having her toes polished, and we were greeted by the receptionist with a smiling face and a time slot. What I didn't notice was the smell; there wasn't one. Unfortunately the only open appointments were at a later time that my friend and I couldn't stay for and we promised to be back another day. Only after we left did my friend mention the all-natural, non-acrylic approach to reinventing the nail salon. I frowned at my missed opportunity and can't wait to make good on my promise to return and give my tips and toes the green treatment they deserve.